“I remembered the old doctor, - "It would be interesting for science to...” — Joseph Conrad Quote

“I remembered the old doctor, - "It would be interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot." I felt I was becoming scientifically interesting.”

“I -- I alone know how to mourn for him as he deserves.' But while we were still shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not the playthings of Time. For her he had died only yesterday. And, by Jove! the impression was so powerful that for me, too, he seemed to have died only yesterday -- nay, this very minute. I saw her and him in the same instant of time -- his death and her sorrow -- I saw her sorrow in the very moment of his death. Do you understand? I saw them together -- I heard them together.”

“Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.”

“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.”

“How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a spectre through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectral throat?”

“Science offers no brief for the telekinetic powers of Darth Vader and hardly any greater justification for the faster-than-light travel that makes his empire possible. And yet what is 'Star Wars' if not pure quill SF?”

“Defenders of industrial agriculture like to brag that Americans enjoy the cheapest food in the world. Today it's hard to know if that's a boast or an indictment.”

“Nothing begins as a single thing; everything starts as a package of things.”

“The three-toed sloth lives a peaceful, vegetarian life in perfect harmony with its environment. A good-natured smile is forever on its lips...I have seen that smile with my own eyes. I am not one given to projecting human traits and emotions onto animals, but many a time during that month in Brazil, looking up at a sloth in repose, I felt I was in the presence of upside-down yogis deep in meditation or hermits deep in prayer, wise beings whose intense imaginative lives were beyond the reach of scientific probing.”

“We do not pay at the pump for the cost of climate change. For the loss of ecosystem services provided by maples and others. Cheap gas now or maples for the next generation? Call me crazy but I’d welcome the tax that would resolve that question. Individuals far wiser than I have said that we get the government we deserve. That may be true but the maples our most generous of benefactors, most responsible of citizens do not deserve our government: they deserve you and me speaking up on their behalf. To quote our town councilwoman “Show up at the damn meeting” Political action, civil engagement these are powerful acts of reciprocity with the land.”